Windows 10: USB losing drive letter after each removal

Hey all:So, this issue has been driving me crazy for the past 2 days. I have a Kingston DataTraveler SE9 G2 64GB USB 3.0/2.0 flash drive. I wanted to change the OS of a PC I have permanently plugged in my TV from Windows 11 to a lighter, Linux distro. I chose Solus Budgie 4.3. I made a bootable USB on the aforementioned drive using PowerISO and everything seemed fine. However, it is a habit of mine to always unplug and then replug any USB I intend on using or taking with me. In this case, when I did that, the flash drive didn't appear in explorer, so I went into disk manager and looked for

:)

 

help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.

 

Remove Drive Letter Logistics

I've always used disk management to assign (CHANGE) a permanent drive letter on a couple of my USB external backup drives. That works like a charm for backup jobs that require a set drive letter destination. But I got to wondering exactly what the other
two disk management Options of ADD and REMOVE actually do.

In other words does REMOVE (as I've read elsewhere) take the Drive Letter currently assigned to the Drive and remove it from not only the drive, but also from the list (i.e. the drop down list) in disk management you see when you want to change a letter.
So that letter will no longer be available for assignment to any drive? What good does this accomplish?

Can I add this drive letter back to the list with the ADD Option? If not what does the ADD Option do?

I had previously though that REMOVE simply removed the letter assignment the disk and the letter would still be available in the disk management list. And the drive would just go back to being assigned the first available letter windows had from then on.

Appreciate any confirmations on what exactly the ADD and REMOVE do.

 

How to Remove Unpopulated Drive Letters

Hello:

First let me thank you for the reply and now I will answer your questions:

1. Are you talking about the duplicate Removable drives appearing File Explorer?

Answer: Yes

2. Will they still appear, even after restarting your computer?

Answer: Yes, I have tried this multiple times.

3. Did check them through Disk Management? Press Windows logo key + X, and select Disk Management from the list.

Answer: When spawning Disk Management the same unpopulated drive letters do appear and to clarify, these are the drive letters appearing each time I would insert a thumb drive. The drive letter associated with the thumb drive appears and remains even after
removing the portable flash drive. When viewing the drive letters in disk management and when right clicking each drive the only options appearing are - Change Drive Letter and Path.../Properties/Help

4. What other troubleshooting steps did you tried?

Answer: Unfortunately, I know of no other steps to try. There is one exception. When I attach a ClipSport MP3 player two additional drive letters appear. One is for the onboard memory and the other for the memory card. When removing the player the drive
letters also vanish.

I am at a loss. And I almost forgot to mention. When viewing the vacant drive letters while in Disk Management I do see the Disk # and underneath the disk Removable (letter and then No Media.

Any other thoughts, or questions? Thank you very much and please reply.

Eric